Important Security Update: Reset Your Drupal.org Password

The Drupal.org Security Team and Infrastructure Team has discovered unauthorized access to account information on Drupal.org and groups.drupal.org.

This access was accomplished via third-party software installed on the Drupal.org server infrastructure, and was not the result of a vulnerability within Drupal itself. This notice applies specifically to user account data stored on Drupal.org and groups.drupal.org, and not to sites running Drupal generally.

Information exposed includes usernames, email addresses, and country information, as well as hashed passwords. However, we are still investigating the incident and may learn about other types of information compromised, in which case we will notify you accordingly. As a precautionary measure, we've reset all Drupal.org account holder passwords and are requiring users to reset their passwords at their next login attempt. A user password can be changed at any time by taking the following steps.

Go to https://drupal.org/user/password
Enter your username or email address.
Check your email and follow the link to enter a new password.
- It can take up to 15 minutes for the password reset email to arrive. If you do not receive the e-mail within 15 minutes, make sure to check your spam folder as well.

All Drupal.org passwords are both hashed and salted, although some older passwords on some subsites were not salted.

See below recommendations on additional measure that you can take to protect your personal information.

What happened?

Unauthorized access was made via third-party software installed on the Drupal.org server infrastructure, and was not the result of a vulnerability within Drupal itself. We have worked with the vendor to confirm it is a known vulnerability and has been publicly disclosed. We are still investigating and will share more detail when it is appropriate. Upon discovering the files during a security audit, we shut down the association.drupal.org website to mitigate any possible ongoing security issues related to the files. The Drupal Security Team then began forensic evaluations and discovered that user account information had been accessed via this vulnerability.

The suspicious files may have exposed profile information like username, email address, hashed password, and country. In addition to resetting your password on Drupal.org, we are also recommending a number of measures (below) for further protection of your information, including, among others, changing or resetting passwords on other sites where you may use similar passwords.

What are we doing about it?

We take security very seriously on Drupal.org. As attacks on high-profile sites (regardless of the software they are running) are common, we strive to continuously improve the security of all Drupal.org sites.

To that end, we have taken the following steps to secure the Drupal.org infrastructure:

Staff at the OSU Open Source Lab (where Drupal.org is hosted) and the Drupal.org infrastructure teams rebuilt production, staging, and development webheads and GRSEC secure kernels were added to most servers
We are scanning and have not found any additional malicious or dangerous files and we are making scanning a routine job in our process
There are many subsites on Drupal.org including older sites for specific events. We created static archives of those sites.

We would also like to acknowledge that we are conducting an investigation into the incident, and we may not be able to immediately answer all of the questions you may have. However, we are committed to transparency and will report to the community once we have an investigation report.

If you find that any reason to believe that your information has been accessed by someone other than yourself, please contact the Drupal Association immediately by sending an email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. We regret this occurred and want to assure you we are working hard to improve security.

Thank you,
Holly Ross
Drupal Association Executive Director

FAQ

What happened?

The Drupal.org Security Team and Infrastructure Team has identified unauthorized access to user information on Drupal.org and groups.drupal.org, which occured via third-party software installed on the Drupal.org server infrastructure.

What information of mine was exposed?

The information includes username, email address, hashed passwords, and country for some users. However, we are still investigating the incident and may learn about other types of information compromised, in which case we will notify you accordingly.

Was my credit card information exposed?

We do not store credit card information on our site and have uncovered no evidence that card numbers may have been intercepted. However, we are still investigating the incident and may learn about other types of information compromised, in which case we will notify you accordingly.

Were projects or hosted drupal.org code altered?

We have no evidence to suggest that an unauthorized user modified Drupal core or any contributed projects or packages on Drupal.org. Software distributed on Drupal.org is open source and bundled from publicly accessible repositories with log histories and access controls.

Does this affect my own Drupal site?

This notice applies specifically to user account data stored on Drupal.org and groups.drupal.org, and not to sites running Drupal generally. However, we recommend that you follow best practices and follow any security notices from Drupal.org or third party integrations to keep your site safe. Resources include the following sites:

How did the access happen?

What has been done to prevent this type of unauthorized access in the future?

There have been several infrastructure and application changes including:

Open Source Lab, the group that hosts the servers for Drupal and infrastructure teams rebuilt production, staging, and development webheads
GRSEC secure kernels were added to most servers
An anti-virus scanner was run over file servers, and run routinely to detect malicious files being uploaded to the Drupal.org servers.
We hardened our Apache web server configurations
We made static archives of any site that has been end-of-lifed and will not be updated in the future
Sites that were no longer going to receive feature or content updates were converted to static copies to minimize maintenance.
We removed old passwords on sub-sites and non-production installations

Do you have any information about the identity of the person or group who did this?

At this point there is no information to share.

What is the security team doing to investigate the unauthorized access?

We have a forensics team made up of both Drupal Association staff and trusted community volunteers who are security experts investigating.

How is my Drupal.org password protected?

Passwords on Drupal.org are stored in a hashed format. Currently, passwords are both hashed and salted using multiple rounds of hashing (based on PHPass). Passwords on some subsites were not salted.

Who maintains the Drupal.org site?

The Drupal Association is responsible for maintaining the site, with the assistance of many trusted Drupal community volunteers.

How can I delete my profile rather than create a new password?

Please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the request.

What else can I do to protect myself?

First, we recommend as a precaution that you change or reset passwords on other sites where you may use similar passwords, even though all passwords on Drupal.org are salted and hashed. Some older passwords on some subsites were not salted. To make your password more secure:

Do not use passwords that are simple words or phrases
Never use the same password on multiple sites or services
Use different types of characters in your password (uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols).

Second, be cautious if you receive e-mails asking for your personal information and be on the lookout for unwanted spam. It is not our practice to request personal information by e-mail. Also, beware of emails that threaten to close your account if you do not take the "immediate action" of providing personal information.

Although we do not store credit card information, as a precaution we recommend you closely monitor your financial accounts if you made a transaction on association.drupal.org or if you use a password with your fianancial institution that is similar to your Drupal.org password. If you see unauthorized activity (in the U.S.), we also suggest that you submit a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission ("FTC") by calling 1-877-ID-THEFT (1-877-438-4338).

Based on the results of the investigation into this incident, we may update the FAQs and may recommend additional measures for protecting your personal information.